Includes bibliographical references.

In Profanations, Agamben has assembled some of his essays on photography, the novel, and film. A meditation on memory and oblivion, on what is lost and what remains, Profanations proves yet again that Agamben is one of the most provocative writers of our time. In ten essays, Agamben rethinks approaches to a series of literary and philosophical problems: the relation between genius, ego, and theories of subjectivity; the problem of messianic time as explicated in both images and lived experience; parody as a literary paradigm; the potential of magic to provide an ethical canon. "In Praise of Profanity," the central essay of this book, confronts the question of profanity as the crucial political task of the moment.--BOOK JACKET.